Lazy Sunday

Today was day for doing nothing. A lazy Sunday for staying in bed, eating chocolate cake and listening to thunderstorms. We spent the morning talking about our plans for the future which most immediately involve heading home to MA for Thanksgiving with my family. My sister and her boyfriend Jae who were here over the summer will be there too and we can't wait. There is no better holiday than Thanksgiving in my opinion, I'm 27 and I've never once missed going home.

Around 5pm we started to get hungry so I made a breakfast of BELTs (tempeh bacon, egg, lettuce and tomato) and home fries with onions. I find home fries can be hit or miss when I make them, sometimes they never get crispy, sometimes they're underdone... I asked Aaron for his advice on making the perfect breakfast potatoes.

Perfect Breakfast Potatoes for Two
1.5 small onions - diced
3 red skin potatoes - 1 inch pieces
3 T olive oil
old bay seasoning - to taste
cumin - to taste
oregano - to taste
salt and pepper - to taste

I followed Aaron's cooking suggestions 1. Lots of oil, 2. High heat 3. Fry the potatoes first 4. Add the onions once the potatoes are crisp. They came out perfect!

While the potatoes are browning add whatever spices you like. I used some old bay, cumin and oregano but you could also use rosemary, zatar and garlic powder. When making up your own spice ratios always start with a little, taste and add more!

For dinner, Aaron made chocolate chocolate chip cake with coffee, walnuts and bananas which we ate around 9pm with mini scoops of vanilla ice cream. As an experiment he whipped the whites of the three eggs the recipe called for and the result was a moist cake that was both fluffy and rich.

Baking tip of the day: Use cocoa for a release instead of flour when making a chocolate cake!

Note: The above photo was taken a couple weeks ago, shortly after my last post. Those were some of the ingredients in Aaron's Scottish gingerbread (yes we know Guinness isn't Scottish) which we sold at I Made It. After several tries, he ended up with a not-too-sweet but rich complex flavor that was complemented by crystallized ginger and raisins.